Mathematics and statistics research

Massey University has some of the highest-ranked mathematics and statistics groups in New Zealand. Our expertise covers a broad range of topics and we have received substantial funding and international recognition for our researchers' work.

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Research projects

Breaking down networks

The brain has tens of billions of neurons and is one of the most complicated networks that we know. This makes any analysis of brain function hugely time consuming.

Dr Carlo Laing is working with a colleague at Princeton University in the US on the phenomenon of spike timing dependent plasticity. This is where the strengths of connections between neurons are modified as a result of the precise “firing” times of individual neurons.

Lattice Polytope Samplers: Theory, Methods and Applications

Statistical inverse problems occur when we wish to learn about some phenomenon that is observed only indirectly, or with error. For example in ecology, where we want to count the number of times individual animals are (re)sighted but identification errors may occur.

A $535,000 grant from the 2017 Marsden Fund is allowing Martin Hazelton and a team of statisticians from Massey to look at techniques from algebraic statistics to develop and study new polytope samplers that can do the above effectively and efficiently.

Take it from the birds

Dr Alona Ben-Tal led a project that developed mathematical equations to describe how the avian respiratory system works. In birds, air flows in one direction during both inspiration and expiration, in an area of the lungs where gas exchange occurs. The project provides a new explanation on the way in which this unidirectional flow is generated.